


Tunnels

by alianora



Category: The Great Escape (1963)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-01-01
Updated: 2005-01-01
Packaged: 2018-01-25 03:01:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1628093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alianora/pseuds/alianora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Danny digs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tunnels

**Author's Note:**

> Written for neverbeen2spain

 

 

Danny spends an unusual amount of time underground for someone who can feel how the earth itself hates him.

In the dark, the dirt closes in around him. He can feel the weight of it pressing down upon him from above. The earth wants to swallow him whole, to suck him down underneath, where dirt will stop his mouth from screaming, and he will stop,

The earth, the dirt keeps trying to bury him, to stop him from what he has to do.

But he has made it this far, this many times without stopping. He won't let it stop him this time either.

The first time, he could only stay down there for five minutes at a time, before the panic would take over and send him hurtling for the surface. In his imagination, the earth did not need teeth to eat him. Every five minutes, he would breech the surface, gulping for air, and praying he does not need to go back below. Now, he can stay down there for hours, as long as he keeps digging.

Because the instant he stops, the dirt is tighter, the walls are lower and closer, and the choking feeling is back.

When he was a kid, he locked himself in a closet by accident. His mother was outside hanging laundry, and so he spent fifteen long minutes rattling the door and crying. When his mother found him, he threw himself at her, almost knocking the laundry basket out of her hands in his eagerness to get out, to get to her, because she could protect him.

This is nothing like that.

That was simple fear, monsters hiding where he could not see. Waiting to eat him up. His young mind conjured tentacles and a snapping mouth out of his father's jacket and tie, a bogeyman out of the creak of wood. That was easy. A few tears and a glass of warm milk, and he was off fighting dragons with his friends.

This has to do with the weight.

There is a ton of dirt waiting above him, pushing down on him. Danny knows, somewhere in the back of his mind, that it is waiting for a time when he stops. It is waiting for a time when he stops paying attention, so it can release the waiting earth onto his head, onto the head of the man who dares to disturb it and move it from its natural pathways.

The only way he can deal with the weight is to not stop moving.

So he keeps his shovel in his hand, and a pick he fashioned, and never stops bracing up as much of the ceiling as he can.

If he could, he would brace the entire structure. Not just keeping it from collapsing, but create a wooden ceiling above him to block the view of the weight.

He would still know it was there, but he would not be reminded with every single slight shift in position with a shower from above.

But the wood, as always, is limited, so he does the best he can and reminds himself often that he has only lost a few hours to cave-ins, at the most. He can always dig himself back out again.

He has to keep telling himself this. He can get out again.

He has been buried in seven minor cave-ins, and one major, which is not a large amount based on seventeen tunnels. The major tunnel collapse was how he lost his last tunnel, and why he was moved to this place.

But he always knows that this particular cave-in will be the last. He will not get out. He cannot stop the panic that takes over when it happens, no matter how hard he tries to remember that air is only a few meters away. He claws his way back into freedom, and goes right back to digging.

If he stops, the panic takes over, and he cannot stop until he has lifted himself through the surface and lies gasping like a drowning man from the ocean.

So he grabs his shovel, and keeps moving.

Even in his sleep, he dreams of digging. His fingers scrabble at the dirt covering him, until he has thrown off all his covers and can still feel his skin itching from the falling earth.

The world underground, for all of the fear of being buried, is simple compared to the world outside.

Crawling back into the light is like being reborn.

His eyes always hurt, when he is outside. Standing up straight feels odd and uncomfortable, and he has to fight the urge to crawl underneath his bunk, just to feel the familiar, hated weight above him again.

Underground, it is just he and his shovel, fighting the good fight against the earth that is trying to bury him.

Outside are prisoners and guards, politics and maneuvers. In fighting, escape attempts and punishments. Learning birdcalls and gardening.

He does not mind the gardening.

It is still digging, after all, and the familiar motion helps him focus on his plans. The current length of the tunnel, how far still to dig, the amount of wood needed, if any of the guards looked at him differently for always having dirt in his hair.

While he was outside, he always felt like he needed to shower. He was sure they guards were looking at the smudges on his face, or counting his showers, or examining his sheets for signs of earth.

He decides he will plant a garden when he gets home.

It's the only thing he can think of that will keep him from digging tunnels under his house, burrowing and channeling to the river, to the road, to his bedroom.

This will be his last tunnel, somehow. He has already decided that. If the earth decides to swallow him, he might just let it this time. He would rather be taken by the earth, then shot by guards.

The earth has tried so many times, after all, and has waited so patiently.

END

 


End file.
